


The Letter

by Mischief_Mismanaged



Series: Regulus AU [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death Eaters, Flawed Albus Dumbledore, Gen, Good Albus Dumbledore, Good Regulus Black, Horcruxes, POV Albus Dumbledore, Redemption, Regulus Black Lives, Regulus Black is a good bro, alternate title: Regulus Black and the Dramatic Letter Writing, and wants to save his brother from prison, informants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 02:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21091964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischief_Mismanaged/pseuds/Mischief_Mismanaged
Summary: Dumbledore was perfectly content to let the traitor, Sirius Black, rot in Azkaban for the rest of his life for what he had done to the Potters. That is, he was until he received a very interesting letter from someone who was supposed to be dead.





	The Letter

Dumbledore was half-heartedly going through his mail early Saturday morning, not quite awake enough to want to face the world again, but bound to do his utmost to carry out his many duties in the wake of Voldemort’s fall, despite that. It had only been a little bit over a week since he had fallen, but unlike most of the witches and wizards in Great Britain, Albus had not had time to celebrate, and would have most likely been too preoccupied with grieving friends, even if he had. Even though he looked on death as the next great adventure when it came to his own mortality, he had never been particularly good at handling the deaths of others. All in all, he would rather keep himself busy than allow himself to mourn, quite yet.

He was shocked out of his ruminations when his hand brushed over something that felt just like every other envelope he had received, but which was, nonetheless, completely invisible. He drew his hand back cautiously, even though he had not felt any noticeable effects of a curse, as of yet. One could never be too cautious, even with Voldemort apparently dead, or at least defeated. Many of his followers were still at large, unfortunately, and that meant that he could still be a target.

Cautiously, this time, he ran his wand over the envelope, muttering a spell that was meant to reveal hidden magic on any non-living object. A rune that was the wizarding world’s equivalent of an olive branch symbol glowed a light blue above the still hidden letter, while what looked like a dark red mist formed around it, indicating that it was cursed with dark magic. 

_What a contradictory message,_ Albus thought, unwittingly amused at the unknown sender, _unless…ah, of course. The curse is not meant for me, but for anyone else who tries to open it with the intent of reading the information inside. _He waved his wand again. _And the curse would result in… the offender’s fingers rotting where his skin touched the envelope—a touch-activated curse—while his mind would be overtaken with a case of delirium so severe that he would forget all about the letter, its contents, and maybe his own identity. Lovely. If I had any doubts before, I suppose that is all the proof I need that it is a rather powerful dark wizard who has contacted me, though strangely, not with the intent to harm me. _Albus felt his curiosity increase.

There was also a faint white mist hovering over the parchment that indicated the disillusionment spell that had rendered the letter invisible, along with the fire-orange outline of an _Eihwaz_ rune, which, while it sometimes could symbolize death, simply meant that a minor blood sacrifice was being used to activate some kind of magical vow, in this case. Interesting. No other spells or curses showed up in his diagnostics. After cancelling the invisibility and carefully removing the curse, he opened the envelope by breaking a deep green wax seal, and unfolded the foot-long piece of parchment inside.

Spiky, calligraphic penmanship met his eyes, penmanship that seemed vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t immediately place it. Unsurprising, since he had taught so many students in his lifetime, and guided so many others as Headmaster.

_Headmaster Dumbledore—_

_I have recently been informed of the news that Sirius Black apparently betrayed Lily and James Potter to the Dark Lord. I happen to know this cannot be true. Even as a former Death Eater, I cannot know for certain that I knew all of the Dark Lord’s spies, especially one as well-hidden as Sirius would have had to be, but I knew Sirius my entire life, and unless he was capable of creating a deep cover identity from the time he was a toddler, there is no way he was secretly in favour of the dark arts all along. I don’t know a single person raised in a dark family who would believe it, though everyone else we grew up with hates him too much to say anything that would help him._

_I am aware that, given the fact that certain civil rights were suspended during the time Sirius was arrested, you would have to put forth considerable effort to get Sirius a trial even now. Further, it would not surprise me if you did not feel inclined to fight for the rights of someone who had apparently murdered several of your favourite former students. That is why I am asking you to do so only in exchange for information essential to your cause. I am asking that you investigate his case further and do everything you can to fight for a fair trial and representation for Sirius in exchange for information regarding steps Voldemort took to achieve immortality._

_As I am sure someone as knowledgeable as you must suspect, Voldemort is no longer human enough to truly die, and has undergone some manner of unnatural ritual to attain immortality. You may even have already guessed the type of ritual. But I have proof, and information that may ensure he will never rise again._

_I do not ask for legal immunity for myself. I am supposed to be dead, have been presumed dead for the past year and a half, and I could stay that way, or you could turn me in to the Ministry, if that is your preference, though I am no longer a danger to anyone. I gave up on caring about what happened to me when I realized I was on the wrong side of the war. Sirius is the best of us, though, the only person in my family who had the right of it from the beginning. He tried to convince me to switch sides two weeks before I disappeared, and I wouldn’t take his advice then, but he wouldn’t have done that if he was planning on becoming Voldemort’s greatest supporter. He’s always tried to protect me, and if he had thought that siding with the Dark Lord was best for me, he would have told me so, but he didn’t. He loved me enough to try and save me even when he hated everything I stood for._

_Please help him, if not out of concern for his life or to uphold the ideals you claim to honor, then to learn essential knowledge that could save us all. This letter contains a drop of my blood beneath my signature, so that you can confirm I am truly still alive, and so that you will possess evidence of the vow I took to uphold my side of this bargain. If you intend to uphold your part of the bargain, sign your name beneath mine, and leave a drop of your blood beneath your signature to complete your oath. If the letter returns to me like that, I shall contact you again to arrange a time to meet. Otherwise, I shall remain in hiding, and attempt to resolve these matters by myself. _

_Sincerely,_

_Regulus Arcturus Black_

Albus could only stare at the letter in shock for a minute. _Regulus Black_, alive, and claiming he knew how to take down Voldemort. He wasn’t sure what was more shocking: that Regulus was alive, that someone who had been so apparently loyal to the purist cause now wanted to kill the Dark Lord, or that he claimed that Sirius was innocent.

When they had been trying to find the traitor in the Order of Phoenix, one of Albus' prime suspects had been Sirius, along with, ironically, Peter Pettigrew. It was why he had wanted to be the secret keeper to the Potters himself, but when he had explained his reasoning to the Potters, James had refused to mistrust either of their friends, and had suspected Sturgis Podmore, an Order member who had been one of the few, along with Sirius, Peter, the Potters, and Remus Lupin, to know the location of the Prewitt’s safehouse before someone had leaked it to Death Eaters. Lily, on the other hand, had been suspicious of Peter for a while, before it turned out that his mother’s illness had been the reason for his occasional disappearances, then began to suspect Podmore, too. Neither had even considered that Sirius could have been the traitor.

However, Sirius, while admirable in many ways, and a seemingly loyal friend, had still been capable, as a teenager, of enough callousness to endanger both Severus Snape and Remus Lupin’s lives, because if Remus had been found guilty of killing a fellow student, he would almost definitely have been “put down” as a dangerous magical creature. While Albus had given Sirius a year of detentions instead of expelling him because having to explain to the Board why he was expelling a student from such a prominent family might have necessitated mentioning Remus, he had never quite trusted him after that. When Sirius had been arrested, his worst fears had been confirmed. Albus had not much entertained the idea that he might have been innocent, with how the evidence was stacked up against him, and the conclusions he had already formed about his character.

He had also distrusted Pettigrew’s strength of character in the past, though, and Peter was the only other one of those he had suspected to be traitors that had been present when thirteen Muggles were killed the day after somebody sold out the Potters, and therefore, the only one besides Sirius who could have been guilty of killing them. He suddenly realized, with startling clarity, that since there had been no trial, it was likely that no one had checked the spell history of Sirius’ wand after he had been arrested.

That would have been a big oversight, to put it mildly, and even though Albus found it unlikely that Sirius was actually innocent, considering all of the eye witness accounts and the fact that most of Pettigrew's body had never been found, doubt was starting to grow in his mind. It wasn’t that Regulus Black was such a trustworthy source, if the mysterious letter writer truly was him. But the letter was starting to make him re-examine the conclusions he’d come to about Sirius’ case and his character, and he had to admit that there were some key details that high emotion, and, perhaps, a lack of information, had caused him to overlook before.

Sirius could be callous, yes, and had a temper to match many of his relatives, but he was impulsive. More importantly, he was a bad liar. Both of those traits could be faked by good liars, but, as Regulus had pointed out, he would have had to begin pretending to be someone else at too young of an age for it to be plausible that his entire personality had been a sham. Besides, if Pettigrew had wanted to fake his death and frame Sirius, there were a few different spells that could have allowed him to simply vanish, or appear to, in the midst of an explosion. Albus didn't think it was plausible that Peter had just apparated away, because he would have had to pivot away from Sirius to do that, and the eye-witnesses had said that Peter had been yelling at Sirius right before being blown up, but there were other ways to trick witnesses with magic, especially when they were muggles. 

Furthermore, whether or not Sirius was truly innocent, if Regulus had any information about steps that Voldemort took towards immortality, it was of paramount importance that he obtain it. If Albus entered into this oath, Regulus would be bound to share all of the information he had already pledged to include. He was not asking to be protected from the Ministry or his fellow Death Eaters as part of the deal, though Albus would do so out of necessity if he was telling the truth about possessing valuable information. That meant that Albus would not be bound to protect him if he was lying. There was also nothing in the vow about being obligated to find either him or his brother innocent during a trial.

Deciding that sealing his part of the vow was worth the risk, he first performed the spell that identified a subject based on a sample of their blood. His eyebrows rose in surprise when faint, green writing appeared above the blood sample that said, “Regulus Arcturus Black." He waved his wand again, and runes appeared above the dried blood that indicated that it was less than a week old. Despite the fact that his instincts had told him that it really was Regulus who had written the letter, the more rational part of his mind had still balked a bit in believing it, and he was now desperately curious how the younger Black had faked his death so convincingly that even Voldemort had been convinced. 

Shaking his head and relegating the interesting mystery to the back of his mind to be solved another time, he summoned the small knife he used for potions, sterilized both the knife and his skin, and made a shallow cut in the palm of his hand. After squeezing a few drops of blood onto the parchment, he signed his name, and waved his wand to dry the ink and blood so the reply could be sent off immediately. After the last few stress-filled days of mourning the Potters’ deaths, worrying about Voldemort’s ability to return, and listening to crime after brutal crime described at the Death Eaters’ trials, he started to feel something like hope stir in his chest. If there was the slightest possibility that Voldemort’s return could be prevented, or that James Potter had not been betrayed by a man that had been as close to him as a brother, then the world was a brighter place than it had been when Albus had woken this morning. He was eager to hear what his former student had to say.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is just a one-shot right now, but I may continue it if I have time later, which is why I've added it to a series. Continuations will most likely be in the form of other one-shots.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters, ideas and settings recognizable as part of the Harry Potter world are the property of J.K. Rowling, not me, and I am not making any profit from this story.


End file.
